The Window Washer

This is a late afternoon (and second story) window washer - taking

advantage of a late and warm January afternoon to clean his windows for

a view of the upcoming seaside sunset. Your ratings and comments

are invited and most welcome. If you rate harshly or very critically,

please submit a helpful and constructive comment; please share your

superior photographic knowledge to help improve my photography.

Thanks! Enjoy! John

functional shot. there is organic lines against non-organic lines(formal). the shot is really valuable specially in black and white.

In my book, this is one of my 'very good' shots -- everything aligns, and it is interesting.

 

But early raters found it just above worthless.

 

I know the worth of my own photos (and I see you do too, along with Andrea de Bonis, and I am heartened).

 

I am very proud of this photo, taken while talking to a junior photographer who was wondering how to take 'good' photographs. I was telling him 'I could probably take a good photograph while we stand here of something you're looking at right now', and 'lo and behold' I saw this.

 

He saw it too, but didn't figure out how to take it or that it made a photo. It is not photoshopped and is full frame. No 'effects' added - that is not my style. I wondered about trimming this one, but decided against it; I like the double or triple frame of construction detail around it - keeps it from being too simple.

 

Surprisingly, it's also very good in color -- it's taken with a very late afternoon sun casting reddish hue on the window washer's back as well as a similar hue on the wall around the window.

 

I wish life always were so easy.

 

Thank you Arash, for your kind words. (I added a few extra remarks 1/20/09 to help explain). JC

 

John (Crosley)

This is a really good capture from a street perspective, albeit and opinion from a pure amateur. It's real, has great tones, and frankly, I got a strong feeling of danger thinking this guy was higher up than he was.

 

I like the shot.

You may be an amateur photographer, but then again so am I -- though I have higher aspirations.

 

There has been no time as a photographer when I would not have felt blessed to be favored by seeing this and capturing this scene, as I have here. I feel your critique is 'right on' and am confused why early raters somehow just felt it was 'ordinary'.

 

Live and learn.

 

Sometimes raters love captures I feel very lukewarm over, and I never can warm up to -- that's the nature of the system I guess.

 

Thanks for stopping by and sharing your opinion.

 

(and don't worry about being an 'amateur' - that's two of us, and you write like an expert.)

 

John (Crosley)

maybe cropped closer would strengthen this. Too much empty space I think without closure. In otherwords the foto has no frame albeit you added one. Maybe I am wrong but the shadow on the lower right also looks as if added in later. The skin and window tones are excellent..There just might come a time when we agree :-) But I think not.

I now see that you addressed those issues above

I was talking with a young photographer, I seem to recall, named Matt, who had a good enough Nikon and a good enough lens and was standing right beside me and could have taken this photo.

 

I had just made the point to him that 'good photos are all around you' -- all you have to do is 'see' them, and then have the gumption to point your lens at them, frame and press the shutter release.

 

As I spoke those words or thereabouts, I spied this guy cleaning his second-story window at Venice Beach, California, from a knoll beyond Muscle Beach or thereabouts, and fired away with several shots -- a series - and chose this one because his straight arm with the wiper blade and perpendicular wiper mirrored or echoed the framing of the photo and the window casement - and completed the theme of 'frames within frames within frames'.

 

It all seemed so simple that I hardly missed a second of our conversation, if I recall correctly.

 

I just found in my e-mail 'spam' a note from Matt, thanking me for our talk and for leading him to my posted photos.

 

The point is easily enough made -- good photos are almost everywhere -- if one has the sensibility to 'see' them.

 

I cannot always 'see' good photos that some landscapers see, or some 'still life' artists do.

 

I think my female photos are pedestrian, yet one day I open my portfolio and someone says they are the best thing I do (maybe that's being damned by faint praise?).

 

In any case, the fun is in creating great photos by putting a frame and perspective around what one sees, then freezing it for all time -- or at least as long as one's photos last.

 

The trick is making them last -- and not to be forgotten.

 

I'm working on that one.

 

Double time.

 

Not only for archival purposes, but for artistic purposes as well.

 

(see my other photo taken just afterward of the two Muscle Beach trainers -- one of my best ever).

 

You never know when you're going to get (or create) a great one.

 

Even in the middle of a conversation sometimes -- as with my new, most-viewed photo - taken while I was conversing with a man behind me at a convention.

 

See photo of man peering down shapely mannequin's bikini top, while another shapely mannequin looks on disapprovingly.

 

It gets from 500 to 1,000 'views' (clicks) a day, assume somebody is not playing a trick on me, and I assume it's posted somewhere on the web. Can anybody point me to the URL where that photo is posted -- or a link posted?

 

Thanks.

 

Obviously I enjoy the heck out of this craft. It also may be 'art' at times, but we'll let others decide that.

 

John (Crosley)